Hunter of Immortals

Chapter 361: Life and Death

Adam watched as the angel's staff came crashing down, and the blue patterns on his body extended onto the ground, following which a stone wall abruptly rose up to oppose the staff.

He had practiced extensively the previous night to control his new domain.

Due to the collapse of the human skin artist's psychic world, Adam wasn't able to test out Sludge's new abilities after becoming a level six anomaly, but he had plenty of time to examine Sludge's new abilities after returning to his cell.

The first thing that had to be introduced was this domain ability. It was only a rudimentary domain, but it still granted him many abilities, the first of which was that he was able to control all things of a stone material encompassed within the psychic vessels extending from his body.

On top of that, his bodily structure had become more compact, and he was even able to shrink his own body at will.

In a shrunken state, his stature and destructive radius would both be reduced, but the density of his body would be increased, thereby allowing him to withstand more powerful attacks.

Overall, Sludge had taken a significant leap in the wake of its latest evolution.

However, this angel was clearly an anomaly of a far superior level.

After smashing the stone wall conjured up by Adam with just a single staff strike, it sent its staff crashing down upon Adam's head once again.

Adam raised his arms to block the attack, thinking that he would be able to withstand it easily thanks to Sludge's tremendous strength and physical resistance, but as soon as the attack landed, his arms instantly turned completely numb from the impact.

After withstanding another blow, his arms began to crack, and large chunks of stone came falling off following a third strike.

Thankfully, with his newly obtained domain ability, he was able to draw upon all of the surrounding structures that were constructed from stone to facilitate recovery. The psychic veins on his body flashed, and the cracks on his arms regenerated at a far faster rate than what he would've been capable of in the past. At the same time, he shrunk down his own body to increase his own bodily density in order to better withstand the subsequent attacks.

Judging from its strength alone, this thing has to at least be a level eight anomaly.

Even a level seven anomaly wouldn't have been able to break through Sludge's defenses so easily.

While withstanding the angel's attacks, Adam invoked Distortion, which emerged out of the angel's shadow before climbing onto its body.

However, the vast disparity in size between the two meant that Distortion was only able to attack the angel's ankles and knees.

Distortion attached all of its hooks to the angel's body, following which a loud grating sound rang out, but the bones in the angel's legs remained firmly intact. In fact, Distortion was barely even able to cut into the angel's skin. Compared with its offensive prowess, it seemed that the angel was even more defensively astute.

There's no way I can kill this thing!

At this point, Adam had already seen enough to determine that this was far too formidable an opponent for him to take down.

However, Adam didn't leave the psychic world right away. Fighting a powerful opponent was a great opportunity to hone one's practical combat skills and psychic power, and he wanted to see just how powerful this Angel of Death was.

"Merciful Judgment!"

After attacking in futility for a while, the angel raised its staff high above its head, then began to chant what sounded like an incantation, but upon closer listening, sounded more like the incoherent ramblings of a mental patient.

It was constantly telling itself that it was doing the right thing.

Adam had once heard that people were always at their most determined when they were doing things that they felt to be justified and righteous.

The most heinous evil in this world was always concealed under a facade of justice.

Following its incoherent ramblings, a burst of holy light erupted from the angel's body to send Distortion flying. Immediately thereafter, the holy light on its body began to slowly gather toward the staff in its grasp, turning as bright and radiant as the sun.

"If you are suffering, but cannot work up the resolve to face death, then I will help you."

The angel lowered its staff in a merciful manner, and a pillar of golden light fell upon Adam, piercing straight through his body and leaving a massive wound, even though his physical defenses had been enhanced after he had shrunk down to a smaller form.

Furthermore, after the pillar of holy light pierced through his body, it lingered there and refused to fade, so Adam was unable to heal from the injury.

One pillar of light after another pierced through Adam's body, while the angel raised a hand, and the scale on the ground rose up into the air at its behest.

After rising up into the air, the "joy" and "pain" on the scale turned into "life" and "death", respectively.

Adam's life had been one in which pain had far outweighed joy, so the scale was heavily tilted toward the side of pain, which currently represented death.

As the scale began to tilt further and further toward death, Adam could feel his own life force rapidly receding. It wasn't that his body was physically breaking down. Instead, it was his psyche that was withering away and approaching death.

Even with Adam's tremendous physical resistance and life force, he would only be able to last fewer than 20 seconds at this rate. He could sense that in no more than 20 seconds, his life force would completely run dry.

I have to get out of here!

At this point, Adam had already developed a good grasp on the powers of the Angel of Death.

It was an anomaly that excelled in attack, defense, and technomancy, and just the power that it had displayed thus far indicated that it was a level nine anomaly.

If it still had other tricks up its sleeve, then perhaps it was an anomaly of an even higher level.

This was the most powerful anomaly that Adam had encountered up to this point.

By his estimations, its overall power was very close to the level of May and Wax Figure, and the only one Adam could think of that could defeat this anomaly for sure was Hebi no Miko.

Perhaps the director would've been able to as well, but Adam had never witnessed the director's power before.

While his life force still hadn't completely run dry, Adam hurriedly departed from the psychic world. The main upside to battling non-adapter opponents was their inability to use psychic boundaries, thereby allowing Adam to disengage himself from the battle anytime he pleased.

What a pity...

Adam was feeling quite dismayed after returning to the real world.

If he could defeat Noah and absorb his anomalic power, he would've been able to elevate himself to become a truly top-tier adapter. Unfortunately, this was simply an impossible task for him at the moment, even with the assistance of Mole and Armadillo.

If only I can take him out of the prison with me.

If he could take Noah out of Darvaza Prison, he would be able to recruit the assistance of May or Sadou. Those two didn't dare to oppose Hebi no Miko or the southern congress, but it shouldn't be a difficult task to convince them to help him take down a non-adapter felon.

With Diana thrown into the mix as well, Noah would've stood virtually no chance.

There's nothing I can do at the moment.

Adam shook his head as he heaved a forlorn sigh, then opened the cubicle door and dragged Noah outside.

Mole and Armadillo were waiting outside, and they approached Adam as soon as he emerged from the cubicle.

"That was fast. How did it go?"

"There's an extremely high-level anomaly in his psychic world that's far too powerful for me to defeat, even if I had you two to help me. I'm planning to keep him alive and have another crack at him at some point." After handing Noah over to Mole, Adam continued, "There's going to be a lot of turmoil in the prison in the near future, so make sure to keep an eye on him and do your best to keep him alive."

"I'll try."

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